


Runs In The Family

by kiichandesu



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff, Future Fic, Gen, I'm actually sorry, Light Angst, OC: Adrinette Kids, Origins Spoilers, first fic in the fandom woo, married, post-reveal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-05
Updated: 2016-03-05
Packaged: 2018-05-24 21:51:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6167956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiichandesu/pseuds/kiichandesu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A butterfly had a cat. The cat loved a ladybug. The ladybug and the cat had a shadow. The shadow was of a butterfly. </p><p>(Join me as I walk through Adrien, Marinette and their daughter Emma's lives after Le Papillon's identity is disclosed.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Runs In The Family

Adrien Agreste is twenty-two and his world is falling apart.  
  
He looks at his father in disbelief and horror. “You. _You_ are Le Papillon?”  
  
The older man doesn’t seem to recognize his son under Chat Noir’s mask. If he does, he surely does a good job hiding it. He stays silent, staring daggers into the two superheroes. His purple, butterfly-like kwami is looking at them with despair in his big dark eyes, although he doesn’t dare to move away from his charge.  
  
Adrien isn’t looking at her, but he can feel that Ladybug’s shock and anger is just as strong as his. And yet, somewhere in her she finds the good sense of grabbing her partner by the wrist and dragging him away as fast as she can.  
  
Which is the right thing to do. Defeating Le Papillon and ending the pain he’s caused to the people of Paris is their primary goal, but Chat Noir looks way too ready to kill.  
  
—  
  
Marinette Dupain-Cheng is twenty-two and she wants to cry.  
  
She doesn’t, because Adrien is the one that needs to let it all out and she’s the one who’s supposed to be there to receive it. That’s what partners do.  
  
She discovered Chat Noir’s identity almost one year ago, and until now she had always thought she wanted to discover Le Papillon’s too. But while she holds in her arms a quietly crying Adrien, softly stroking his hair, she wishes she hadn’t.  
  
—  
  
Adrien is twenty-five and he’s a father now, which is incredible and terrifying.  
  
Marinette has been doing nothing but reassuring him that he will be an amazing father. So has said Tikki about a thousand times in the last nine months. Plagg has been going back and forth between laughing at him and telling him that he worries too much.  
  
Adrien knows he doesn’t. He worries exactly that right amount. (How can he be a good father when just hearing the word gives him goosebumps?)  
  
However, when he holds his daughter for the first times and feels her small heart beating against his own, his worries softly fade and are replaced by an inexplicable joy.  
  
“Hello, Little Lady.”  
  
—  
  
Marinette is twenty-five and she’s so happy she could die.  
  
She’s finally back home from the hospital and she can finally see her beautiful daughter sleeping in the lovely cradle her parents bought for her.  
  
Emma Agreste-Cheng has adorable, messy brown hair like her grandfather Tom, and stunning, bright and green eyes like her father, and she’s a literal ball of sunshine. She likes to play with Tikki and Plagg, and seeing her trying to catch them with her tiny hands makes Marinette a little sad that she will not remember them nor ever be allowed to see them when she’s grown and able to understand what they are.  
  
She feels her husband’s warm arms wrapping around her waist, and giggles.  
  
—  
  
Emma is six and she’s wondering about her grandparents.  
  
Not Granda Tom and Grandma Sabine. She knows everything she needs to know about them: they’re funny, they play with her, they’re amazing babysitters and they bake the best sweets in all of France, and she loves them very much.  
  
No, the ones she’s wondering about are her father’s parents. She has never met them. Dad has mentioned his mother before, but it was brief and he quickly changed the subject.  
  
She tried to ask, “Where are your Mom and Dad, Daddy?” but Mom stopped her mid-sentence and never let her finish it. Strange, right?  
  
—  
  
Adrien and Marinette are thirty-one and this is getting hard.  
  
Emma wasn’t supposed to see the portrait of Adrien with his parents, but they accidentally left her alone long enough for her to get to the attic and see it.  
  
How do you stop a six-year-old child from asking a lot of questions about a very delicate subject without scaring them or upsetting them?  
  
Adrien tries very hard to keep smiling while he tells his daughter that he doesn’t have a Mom or a Dad anymore. She doesn’t seem to understand, but agrees when Mom softly asks her not to bring it up again because Dad did look really sad.  
  
(That, and Mom promised cookies in exchange.)  
  
—  
  
Marinette is thirty-two and she’s giving birth again.  
  
This time it’s twins. Holding the girl, she looks up at Adrien, who’s holding the boy. “What did he get?” she asks, curious.  
  
“Your hair _and_ your eyes.” he says with mock disappoinment. “The nose is mine though. How about her?”  
  
The woman hesitates a moment. “Same!”  
  
“What? How is that fair?” She laughs at Adrien’s pout, and he soon joins her.  
  
He can’t actually be upset over his children looking like the most amazing person he’s ever met and love of his life, can he now?  
  
—  
  
Adrien is thirty-two and Emma looks cute when she pouts.  
  
They’ve been sitting on the couch for an hour now, while Mom’s been taking care of the twins. They’ve been in religious silence the whole time, because he doesn’t know how to reassure his daughter that her parents don’t love her any less now that she isn’t the only child in the house and she certainly isn’t going to talk if he doesn’t do it first.  
  
He’s startled when he hears her sniffing. She rubs her eye and refuses to look at him. _I’m sorry_ , he thinks, _don’t cry_. He can literally feel Plagg rolling his eyes in the pocket of his shirt.  
  
He frantically tries to think of what to do, but Emma precedes him and hugs him as tight as she can. “I love you,” she says as her voice cracks.  
  
“I love you too, Little Lady,” he replies, stroking her hair. “I always will.” And it’s true; that’s why he feels so guilty for letting her doubt it.  
  
—  
  
Emma is twelve and _dealing with Hugo and Louise is literal hell!_  
  
She loves her siblings. A lot. Even so, she wonders why she offered to babysit them. Thinking about it now, it was a dumb decision. Very dumb. If she needed money to go to a movie with her friends (which she did) she should’ve offered to do laundry for a week.  
  
No amount of euros was worth having two hyper-active five-year-olds throw cushions and dolls and toy cars and _everything else in the house_ at her.  
  
“Seriously, I’m going to tie you both to the couch!” she yells as she desperately tries to catch them. She received a pillow in the face as a response. Well. At least someone was having fun...  
  
Where the heck were Mom and Dad?  
  
—  
  
Ladybug and Chat Noir are thirty-seven and jumping around rooftops is still fun.  
  
It would be even more fun if the Akuma of the day wasn’t strong enough to keep them occupied for hours making them both late for dinner, but you have to take what you can get. Besides, thinking positive is the only way Paris’ heroes can do their job anymore.   
  
Well, Chat Noir doesn’t love it as much as he did roughly fifteen years ago. He still loves it, but he can’t really shake off the unpleasant sensation of knowing _who_ was behind their enemy’s mask.  
  
Ladybug’s Magical Cure spreads around the city and the couple is finally free to go home. What they don’t expect to find is said home to be a complete mess, with their eldest daughter lying face-down on the couch and the twins rampaging free.  
  
(Sometimes, Akumas are easier.)  
  
—  
  
Emma is fifteen and her eyes hurt. She’s been holding back tears: it’d be stupid to cry.  
  
She traces with her thumbs a picture of her with the twins and her parents, taken a couple of years ago. She rests her eyes on Mom and Dad.  
  
She shouldn’t be mad at them, right? It’s not their fault she feels like this. Then again, who’s fault is it if not theirs? It’s them she’s always being compared to.  
  
( _“You fence pretty well! I’m sure you’ll soon be just as good as your father.” “Your Mom used to draw a lot too when she was your age, y’know? Heck, she still does. She’s the most talented artist I know!” “Marinette’s sweets are the best. Can you bake as good?”_ )  
  
This isn’t fair, is it? She’s right to be upset, isn’t she?  
  
She barely notices the butterfly landing on the photograph. “Hello, Le Ombre.”  
  
—  
  
Marinette is fourty and her heart is breaking.  
  
It didn’t take long to recognize Emma under the mask of Le Ombre. Grey hair, grey eyes, grey costume that looked a lot like Ladybug’s; the heroine catches as breath when she sees, hanging around the girl’s neck, a picture of their family, host of the Akuma.  
  
She can’t even look at Chat Noir while she dodges the beams that Le Ombre is firing at them. She knows he must be as shaken as she is.  
  
“You remind me of my parents,” Le Ombre says, poison in her voice, and the two of them flinch. Marinette feels Tikki trying to comfort her inside of her Miraculous. “Marinette ‘super-perfect’ Dupain-Cheng and Adrien ‘can-do-no-wrong’ Agreste.” sing-songs the girl, bitter. “But don’t worry; you won’t be much like them after I take all of your talent away. You’ll never be able to outshine anyone ever again!”  
  
Ladybug swings her yo-yo to shield herself from more beams, but she doesn’t need to, because Chat Noir manages to grab the girl by both wrists. “I get the feeling you’re angry at your paw-rents, Little Lady.” he says, trying his best to sound as natural as possible.  
  
The girl winces at that nickname, and growls: “Who do you think I live in _the shadow_ of?!”  
  
—  
  
Le Ombre is two hours old and the ground is cold.  
  
On her knees, she firmly grips on the earth with her hands and watches as her tears fall on them. Le Papillon’s scolding her for stopping the fight, but she ignores him.  
  
She hears Ladybug’s steps coming towards her and she holds herself back from looking at the heroine. _This is humiliating._  
  
“Do you hate your parents?” the woman asks, her voice thick and... afraid?    
  
Le Ombre lets the ground be so she can embrace herself. “No! I love them! They’re perfect! _That’s_ the problem!” she cries, still looking down. She feels Chat Noir approaching too. “How do I deal with knowing I’m never going to be as good as them?!”  
  
The heroes seem to hesitate. “That isn’t true,” comments Chat after a while, and she feels his hand on her shoulder. She still doesn’t look at him. “You can draw and bake so much better than your father.”  
  
“And you can fence better than your mother ever could,” Ladybug adds, and her hands reach for the girl’s face to wipe away some of the tears.  
  
That’s when Le Papillon gets tired, Le Ombre starts twitching in pain and the heroes decide it’s time to rip in half that stupid photo.  
  
—  
  
Adrien is fourty and he’s never been this mad in his whole life, which is saying something.  
  
“What kind of man does that to his own grand-daughter?!” He paces through the living room, his eyebrows furrowed and his pulse racing.  
  
Plagg, comfortably rested on the couch next to Marinette and Tikki, eats a big piece of Camembert and shrugs. “Don’t yell, you’re going to wake the twins.”  
  
“I don’t care!” the man retorts, but he does lowers his voice when he sees that his wife is begging him to do so with her eyes. He’s not blind to the fact that she’s about to cry.  
  
She doesn’t, though. She never does when something happens in regards of his father. She’s way too good to him, huh? “She’s going to be back from school soon.” she says in a whisper. “We need to talk to her.”  
  
—  
  
Emma is still fifteen, and her parents are Ladybug and Chat Noir.  
  
Ladybug.  
  
And Chat Noir.  
  
Her parents.  
  
Her legs betray her and she’s forced to sit on the couch. She looks at the fairies (one red with spots, one black with cat ears) that are floating right in front of her. They introduce themselves as Tikki and Plagg, and Tikki says it’s been a really long time since they have last met her face-to-face. She doesn’t remember that ever happening.  
  
She stares incredulously at her parents. Mom is shaking. Dad is the only one looking at her in the eye.  
  
“Why are you telling me?” she asks after a long, uncomfortable moment of silence. She doesn’t really need an answer: she knows why. It’s for the same reason she told them she was akumatized a couple of days ago. It must be it, right?  
  
“We want you to know we’re not perfect. That’s why you need to know _all_ of us.”  
  
She takes a deep breath. “What else did you not tell me?” She sees them exchanging a worried glance. This... isn’t going to be good.  
  
—  
  
Emma is seventeen and there’s a purple kwami in her room.  
  
The two of them blankly stare at each other for a moment. He speaks first, and she listens to him telling her the story of how he’s Le Papillon’s kwami and that his last ‘Master’ used his powers to hurt others, but was recently stopped by Ladybug and Chat Noir. She replies she already knows.  
  
She is afraid at first of holding the brooch in her hands. She asks the kwami why her parents didn’t take his Miraculous when they defeated her grandfather. He replies Chat Noir had refused too.  
  
—  
  
Two days later, Adrien is fourty-two and he’s doing his best to keep himself together.  
  
He watches as his daughter tortures her hands and slumps her shoulders to look smaller. She probably isn’t doing it consciously. What she is doing and likely forcing herself to do is keeping eye contact with him. And he knows that gaze. It’s the gaze of someone who wants something and won’t take no for an answer, no matter the consequences.  
  
It’s his gaze.  
  
“I am keeping Nooroo with me.” she declares, “I’m his charge now, and I will not let anybody ever use him to hurt others ever again.” The kwami, who’s been half-hiding behind her shoulder, nuzzles gently on her neck and she leans into the touch. _They have already bonded in such a short time_ , Adrien realizes. “But if you don’t want me to use his powers for good either,” she adds, “I understand, and I won’t.”  
  
Adrien thinks. He thinks hard. He looks at Emma, at Nooroo, then at Plagg. The black kwami gently strokes his paw on the man’s leg. He understands. Adrien looks up at his daughter again. Her eyes are watery. She’s terrified. And she understands too. That’s why she came to him and not Marinette.  
  
“You have got yourself a deal.” he sighs, even though it’s not quite what he should say.  
  
_Be the superhero I know you are_ , he should say, because she would be so good at it. He doesn’t. Instead, he watches the pained but caring glance Emma gives Nooroo, and yes, she has his eyes, but that beautiful smile is her mother’s.  
  
—  
  
Nooroo is ageless and habits are hard to kill.  
  
It’s hard not to call Emma ‘Master’ like he used to call Gabriel. It’s hard not to agree with everything she says. It’s hard not to feel extremely indebted with Plagg and Tikki. It’s hard not to feel guilty, because Adrien and Emma almost never talk and it’s his fault.  
  
(He asks her if she’s really okay with being his charge. She says yes. He asks if she’s really, really sure. She says yes again.)  
  
He knows Adrien has every right to be worried for his daughter and to be mad at him for endangering her. Nooroo’s powers have a dark potential, and he’s aware of that. After what they did to Gabriel, he’s suprised he was welcomed in the house. It didn’t really matter that he was a victim as well. If Gabriel had issues, Le Papillon’s power only amplified them and made them permanent.  
  
(Emma starts calling him Petit Papillon.)  
  
—  
  
Ladybug is fourty-two and _that stupid cat_.  
  
“Are you patrolling without me, kitty?”  
  
Chat Noir jumps and turns around to face his wife. “Of course not, My Lady,” he quickly replies, flashing a grin. “I’m just taking my usual, relaxing walk under the moonlight.” Besides, with Le Papillon down, there is no point in patrolling anymore.  
  
“I wouldn’t call it ‘relaxing’,” Ladybug says, walking to him and ruffling his hair. “Seeing as you always spend it overthinking everything.” He makes a face, and she smiles lovingly. “Adrien, stop thinking and go talk to your daughter.”  
  
“...Which one?” he tries, but he’s not putting much effort into it. Her eloquent look answers it for him. “Why don’t _you_ talk to her? You’re so much better at it.”  
  
Her smile becomes a little smug. “I know, but she’s always been Daddy’s girl.”  
  
He sighs. “I’m too old for this.”  
  
“No, you’re not. What you’re too old for is jumping around rooftops in a leather suit to avoid your problems.” Ladybug promptly retorts.  
  
He raises an eyebrow. _God, he’s still so beautiful._ “Well, so are you.” _Good point_.  
  
—  
  
Emma is seventeen and a half and she’s worried.  
  
“I don’t want to be Le Papillon if it means you quit being Ladybug and Chat Noir.”  
  
Her parents smile at that. They expected it. “We are going to quit anyway,” her Mom suggests kindly, and she grimaces.  
  
“You love being Ladybug and Chat Noir. I know you do. Why would you quit? Why would you let them quit?” she turns to Tikki and Plagg. The former smiles at her, the latter just shrugs and yawns. Emma searches her father’s face when he rests his hands on her shoulders.  
  
“I love being Chat Noir ‘cause it makes me feel free.” he calmly explains, “I don’t need him for that anymore. I have your mother, the twins, and you now.” She feels a lump in her throat. “But Paris does need someone to look after it while Tikki and Plagg look for new charges.”  
  
Her voice cracks. “But you don’t want me to be Le Papillon.”  
  
He tightens his grip on her. “I don’t want you to be like your grandfather. And I already know you’re not.” He pulls her in his arms, and she leans in the hug. “You’re going to be a purr-fect superhero, Little Lady.”  
  
She sighs inbetween small sobs. “Then again, if you quit being Chat Noir, you’ll have no more excuses for lame puns.”  
  
“Oh, I wouldn’t be sure of that.” Her mother says, rolling her eyes and joining their hug. It didn’t take long for the three of them to decide that it was okay to wake up the twins to get an even larger group hug.  
   
—  
   
Ladybug is fifteen, Chat Noir is seventeen and none of the two is surprised when a young lady dressed up in purple calls to them.  
  
They study her with their eyes and she studies them.  
  
She has messy brown hair, bright green eyes, and wears a plum suit of which the sleeves and the trousers are very short. The skin that should be showing on her arms and legs is complitely covered by gloves and stockings of a dark purple. She wears black boots, a silver mask, a winged brooch and carries a cane.  
  
Ladybug’s suit isn’t very different from the one of her predecessor. The difference is the presence of black, tight boots and gloves and a belt. Her hair is half-neck long and light brown, while her eyes are black. She’s cute.  
  
Chat Noir’s suit is _identical_ to his predecessor’s. Tipical, lazy Plagg. His hair is long and orange, tied in a ponytail, his eyes green. He’s pretty cute too. He seems pretty eager, considering he can’t seem to stop playing around with his baton.  
  
“So, you’re the partners my kwami mentioned?” Ladybug inquires.  
  
Le Papillon shakes her head and smiles at the both of them. “You two are partners. I am your sidekick dispenser,” she shrugs, slightly amused. “Your shadow, if you will.” 

**Author's Note:**

> I am Italian: forgive me for mistakes in the language/grammar. Please correct me if you see any!
> 
> I am sorry for this. I had this idea for SO LONG holy cow-  
> Between the way too many OCs ideas I have for this show, Emma is my favorite. So here you have it.  
> I'm probably going to write different versions of this AU, so I don't know, keep an eye out for those if for some reason you liked this one.  
> (Also, I don't think I made it clear enough, Le Ombre's power is that to take away all of a person's talents and abilities and make them basically incapable of anything. Even walking, I suppose.)


End file.
